Re: King David and his son, King Solomon --case closed

Friar Broccoli wrote:
Hi Adman;

Hey there. I hope all is well with you.


This is a reply to
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/fffbe35b8e1ad21b

with most of our previous discussion cut, so I can focus on the
usefulness of biblical "kinds" to realistically describe the
animals we see in nature.

I believe evolution happens. But within the species. A modern
day example would be dogs. Because of selection, natural or
otherwise, genetic drift, ---add in some external pressures
and ancient wolves become the variety of dogs we see today via
evolution.

Well since you use dogs (including wolves) as an example of a
semi-immutable kind, I guess that's as good a place as any to
begin.

Consider the following list of dog like animals:

- aardwolves
- African Wild Dog
- coyotes
- dholes (Asiatic Wild Dog)
- dingoes
- dogs (domestic)
- foxes
- jackals
- raccoons
- wolves

Can you tell me which are dogs?

Roughly 20 minutes in Wikipedia will give you one grouping as
follows:

* Excluding the aardwolves (which look like dogs but are in fact
a type of Hyena and thus in the cat family) they are all in
the:
Suborder: Caniformia, or Canoidea which literally means "dog-like"

* Then, excluding the raccoons all of the remainder are in the
Family: Canidae (though it is argued that foxes be moved
farther away from Canis/dogs)

* Then, excluding the:
Genus: Lycaon (African Wild Dog)
Genus: Cuon (dholes)
Genus: Vulpes (foxes)

The remainder are in the Genus: Canis
(dogs, coyotes, wolves, dingoes, and jackals).

The point I am making here is that there is no obvious line
between an animal that is clearly a dog and one that is clearly
a cat or a weasel. Species often grade into one another without
any clear line separating them. This in fact, is one of the
most annoying problems faced by taxonomists when trying to
develop meaningful classification systems.

I hope you will take a few minutes to track any of the groups
that are unknown to you, to verify that the above is sensible.

Thanks, i know them all.

The problem is man has established "Orders and Families and Genus" for this
or that. Clearly what the bible means is the "Canis". A nitpic is the
jackal. It does not belong with wolves that have given rise to dogs.

They starting off saying "This huge group (or order) are carnivors and then
split that group up again and again. The bible does not do that. The bible
talks of the final Genus. That specific "kind". This "kind" is what can
mate, or evolve to meet natures demands. I'll explain in more detail below.

Besides, man is assuming he has split the Kingdom, Phylum, Class Family
Order up correctly in the first place.

In addition, the Kingdom may have been quite different in the preadamic
world judging from ancient text. For instance, there may not be such a thing
as a carnivor in the preadamic world. Personally, i believe the saber tooth
cat was nothing more then a house cat to the preadamic man and the dino was
nothing more then a funny lizzard. That is if all these texts that speak of
giants and a rather long life span are true. Many cultures had stories of
giants and long life spans as well as a different atmosphere on the earth.


From ancient texts this would be "each after their own kind".

OK, this leads to an alternative classification system. It is
proposed by many Christians that the animals we see are grouped
into [semi-]immutable "kinds" (Hebrew "min") following their
creation.

proposed by many Christians ?

I have been pigon-holed on this NG since my first post. I do not base my
opinion on science or religion. Although i will consider each of them for
information to base my opinion. I have a rather vile opinion of both. I base
my opinion on what makes the most sense, and what ancient man has handed
down to us that we already know. The same information that so many in the
science fields want to discredit because they know this information is a
direct confrontation to their very foundations. Evolution in paticular. And
the more i read these NG's, i may take it upon myself to write a book
comparing what is in ancient texts to science and evolution so the public
can see the differences.

ok, lets see what you got below with that out of the way.


To see if this classification system is better, I think it will
be useful to begin by looking into scripture to see what "kinds"
are. This should be pretty easy since the Bible only uses
kind/(min) in four places.

Here are all four from the NIV translation:

/===================================================================/
(1) Leviticus 11:13-23

13 These are the birds you are to detest and not eat because they are
detestable: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture, 14 the red
kite, any kind of black kite, 15 any kind of raven, 16 the horned
owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk, 17 the little
owl,
the cormorant, the great owl, 18 the white owl, the desert owl, the
osprey, 19 the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat.

20 All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to
you. 21 There are, however, some winged creatures that walk on all
fours that you may eat: those that have jointed legs for hopping on
the ground. 22 Of these you may eat any kind of locust, katydid,
cricket or grasshopper. 23 But all other winged creatures that have
four legs you are to detest.

Leviticus 11:29

29 Of the animals that move about on the ground, these are unclean
for you: the weasel, the rat, any kind of great lizard,

/===================================================================/
(2) Deuteronomy 14:12-13

11 You may eat any clean bird. 12 But these you may not eat: the
eagle,
the vulture, the black vulture, 13 the red kite, the black kite,
any
kind of falcon, 14 any kind of raven, 15 the horned owl, the
screech
owl, the gull, any kind of hawk, 16 the little owl, the great owl,
the white owl, 17 the desert owl, the osprey, the cormorant, 18 the
stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat.

/===================================================================/
(3) Ezekiel 47:10-12

10 Fishermen will stand along the shore; from En Gedi to En
Eglaim there will be places for spreading nets. The fish will
be of many kinds -- like the fish of the Great Sea. 11 But
the swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be
left for salt. 12 Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both
banks of the river.

/===================================================================/
(4) Genesis 1:11-13

11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing
plants
and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to
their various kinds." And it was so. 12 The land produced
vegetation:
plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing
fruit
with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was
good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning -- the third
day.

Genesis 1:20-25

20 And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let
birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." 21 So God
created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving
thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and
every
winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22
God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and
fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the
earth."
23 And there was evening, and there was morning -- the fifth day.

24 And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to
their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and
wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. 25 God
made
the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according
to
their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground
according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

/===================================================================/

Now, if you do a little googling you will find that there are
MANY possible ways to translate these phrases, producing many
possible meanings. One (of many) alternative variants is
discussed here:

http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/biblevol.html

so I will mention only in passing that if we accept this NIV
translation then (see Deuteronomy 14:13) there are "kinds" of
both ravens (Genus: Corvus) and falcons (Genus: Falco), but
right away we see a problem, because if the members of a genus
are broken into "kinds" it is roughly equivalent to saying that
there are "kinds" of dog (Genus: Canis), and thus presumably
that domestic dogs and wolves are of different "kinds".

The details of the foregoing argument may or may not be fair,
depending on what the original text was intended to mean, but it
highlights the point that the Hebrews did not divide up animal
groups in at all the same way we do.

We see another grouping problem immediately prior to the quoted
text in Leviticus 11:4-6 where we have the famous passage in
which rabbits and camels are grouped together because they both
chew the cud.

From the quoted text we see that (the 1100 mammalian species of)
bats are grouped together with birds. We also see from the
above (Leviticus 20:23) that insects are described as having
four legs.

So I think we can say with some confidence that the authors of
these texts did not have a good understanding of species and
their anatomies, throwing yet more doubt on the value of "kind"
for any realistic model of animal classification.

But even if we assume that none of these problems is important and
that "kinds" means something like Genus, it still isn't obvious
that the word "kind" was used in a way that contradicts
evolution.

Consider that the Genesis 1 verses 20 and 24 begin:

And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures ...

And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according
to their kinds:

These phrases are fully consistent with God LETting the water
and the land produce animals by an evolutionary process, and
such an evolutionary process produces genera or "kinds".

So, as far as I can tell, nothing in Genesis forces us to
concluded that the various kinds were created instantaneously
(instead of by evolution) and you have already acknowledged that
evolution is proceeding now.

So, it is not clear to me why you believe that dogs, foxes,
raccoons and aardwolves aren't kinds that have resulted from an
evolutionary process guided by God.

Are you certain that you are not reading into scripture a
meaning that simply is not there, especially given that God has
left us so much other evidence to examine?

Thanks for your effort and POV. And an interesting conversation for sure.
But I must rebut this with an overall concept rather then address this
paragraph by paragraph; or point by point.

IMO, you have completely distorted the meaning of the word "Kind" in
Genesis by rationalization what you want it to mean with food laws and other
descriptions in the bible. Food laws are not quite the same as creation, nor
is it a direct comparison, is it?? And even modern words depend on the
context for their accuracy. Aramaic and Ancient Hebrew are just as strict as
Latin by using specific words for specific meanings that have no comparable
words in English. So context as well as an accurate definition is everything
when understanding the real meaning of books such as the bible. Further, you
seem to have done no research into the exact meaning of the words and assume
the English translation means exactly as it reads. I'll explain.

You have to understand their slang and culture to understand how the words
are used. Further, you also need an understand of the word's specific
meaning in each language. An incorrect word usage is why: -- when Jesus
asked Peter 3xs if peter loved him,-- everyone thinks Jesus asked the same
question three times. This is not the case. Because the English word "love"
relates to several words in the original language. But when we read the
English version, it seems as if Jesus is asking the same question three
times when in actuality Jesus is asking three different questions. (and the
bible is riddled with these kinds of misunderstandings because of the
differences between English and other ancient languages)

The majority of words in the Hebrew language can be boiled down to a
three-consonant root word that contains the essence of the word's meaning.
To get an accurate meaning and interpretation of the Bible you have to
understand the relation between root words, their culture, and their
definition.

If you want to look at how the word "kind" was being used in Genesis, then
compare it to what else was being created along with an accurate definition
of the word. IOW you do not go searching for the word used in another
context such as food laws.

First let's see what else was being created and compare:

Gen 1:11 and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed [is]
in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

Gen 1:12 and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed [was] in itself, after his
kind: and God saw that [it was] good.

Now, as you can see the word "kind" is being used to specifically describe a
"tree" with whose seed [is] in itself.

This is not describing anything other then trees with seeds inside the fruit
as being a "kind".
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now, Lets look at the individual words:

Genos, (kind) the word in Greek.
The *root* word means to:

1) to become, i.e. to come into existence, begin to be, receive being
2) to become, i.e. to come to pass, happen
a) of events
3) to arise, appear in history, come upon the stage
4) to be made, finished of miracles, to be performed, wrought
5) to become, be made

The individual definition of the word means:
1) kindred
a) offspring
b) family
c) stock, tribe, nation
1) i.e. nationality or descent from a particular people
d) the aggregate of many individuals of the same nature, kind, sort

We can assume based on the context of use, the root word, and the word
definition, that what is being described with the Greek word "genos"(the
English word "kind") is offspring that becomes, or arises into existence
from the same kindred or family. The greek word also suggest creation
(receive being), and miracles.

This is also based on the comparison above that trees with seeds are of the
same "family" of trees.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

Now the Hebrew word miyn (kind)
The *root* word means:

"from an unused root meaning to portion out"

definition:
1) kind, sometimes a species (usually of animals)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now we can compare both Hebrew and Greek to English:

We can assume based on the context of use, the root words definitions, the
actual words definitions, that what is being described is offspring that
becomes, or arises into existence (portion out) from the same kindred or
family. (usually of animals).The greek word also suggest creation (receive
being), and miracles.

This is also based on the comparison above that trees with seeds are of the
same "family" of trees.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Now to conclude. I really could care less how religious freaks, and science
k00ks want to manipulate the use of the word "kind" regarding evolution.
Both of them have become utterly laughable to the general public with their
push and pull fight. Truth should be paramount. The actual meanings of the
words in the context of how the author uses the words are clear. The "kind"
can produce it's own "kind" So I know what the word "kind" means. If they
can successfully reproduce, they are of the same kind. If they produce
offspring that cannot reproduce they are not of the same kind. If they
cannot produce offspring at all they are not of the same kind.

And so far I have seen nothing, zero, nadda, that proves any type of
evolution outside the of the "kind" or outside of "each after their own
kind".

What happens when bacteria develops a resistance to drugs? You get a
stronger bacteria evolving the necessary traits to survive. Period. Is it
still a bacteria? Yes. When a stronger variety of plant evolves from natural
selection and mutation, it is still a plant? Yes.

And this ridiculous argument that creationists want to see a cat give birth
to a rat is just that. But to prove evolution there should be something
lying around that shows the grading you mention above. But there is none. I
have seen a few examples that could suggest an intermediate species. But it
could also suggest birth defects or another type of mutation within the same
species that eventually died out.


it really is that simple.

Adman.

dictionary ref:
http://www.blueletterbible.org/search/lexiconc.cfm?ss=kind&searchtype=whole

.

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